REVISTA DE INVESTIGACIÓN FILOSÓFICA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL Dialektika
A disciple of Plato among British Moral Philosophers: A review of The Sovereignty of Good
UN DISCÍPULO DE PLATÓN ENTRE LOS FILÓSOFOS MORALES BRITÁNICOS: UNA REVISIÓN DE LA SOBERANÍA DEL BIEN
1* Rogney Piedra Arencibia 1* Doctorando en Filosofía, Queen’s University, Canadá
Email: [email protected]
Recibido: 14/06/2019
Aceptado: 13/08/2019
REVIEW
Para Citar: Piedra Arencibia, R. (2019). Un Discípulo de Platón entre los filósofos morales británicos: Una revisión de La Soberanía del Bien. Dialektika: Revista De Investigación Filosófica Y Teoría Social, 1(2), 47-49. Recuperado a partir de
https://journal.dialektika.org/ojs/index.php/logos/article/view/14.
LA PALANCA FÍSICA EN LA FILOSOFÍA 47 SEPTIEMBRE-DICIEMBRE. (2019). Vol. 1 (2), pp. 47-49.
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Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good. New York: Routledge, 2001, 126 pp., $16.76 USD (pbk), ISBN 13: 979-0-415-25552-3 (pbk) he Sovereignty of Good is a short volume (70 pages in its first, (D). (It is curious that here Murdoch retains the pedantic 1970, edition) composed of three previously separately analytical style of using symbols for no reason at all in her published essays on moral philosophy by the British intent to argue against this very tradition, perhaps in an T philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch. One of its many attempt to not appear as a complete outsider). Our evaluation appeals is that it is not like the typical (grey-soberly of an object is true when we see it how it is through just, analytical) British philosophy text. This can be said not only loving and unselfish attention toward it. A since there is no
regarding Murdoch's lively style of writing but also general formula for each moral situation, we should develop concerning the content of her ideas. Murdoch's book is a a sensibility to feel "magnetic pull" of the perfectness of things
reaction against the predominant Anglo-Saxon moral in order to see them as they are. Thus, love is knowledge of
philosophy of her time. Against the continuous efforts of the the individual object in its perfection. This is a move directed REVIEW latter for making moral affairs either a non-sense or an against the dominant moral philosophy of her time, not only emotional-subjective matter, Murdoch offers the peculiar for its cognitive approach to morality but also for rescuing Platonist approach of stating Good as the objective aim of the the commonly neglected concept of love. virtuous (unselfish and loving) person's attention. In the second essay, "On 'God' and 'Good,'" Murdoch The first of the three essays, "The Idea of Perfection," offers a struggles between two one-sided opposite trends in critical approach to several analytical philosophers such as G. contemporary philosophy: the "romantic" humanism E. Moore, Wittgenstein, Ryle, Ayer, Hare, and Stuart (existentialism) that proclaims that we are free, and the Hampshire and their —at the time— influential moral "scientific" (reductionist) empiricism that makes of man just philosophy. The outcome of this analytical moral philosophy another object of nature captive in its iron cause-effect chain. was its sharp division between fact and value, and the belief She is not satisfied with either of these views, although she that while the former is the proper object of knowledge, the makes a significant concession to the latter when she accepts latter lack of any cognitive content — a picture of a world a "realistic" picture of human nature following the "quasi- deprived of intrinsic value, a cold neutral realm of pure facts. mechanical" Freudian description of our psyche. The The moral agent in such a world is the "free" (abstract, Hobbesian notion of homo homini lupus seems to dominate unconditioned, autonomous) will, a will of choosing. It is her view on this. Murdoch openly declares that, for her, highly significant, as Murdoch suggests, that this picture of human beings are naturally selfish. She does not take this the world and the moral subject is also typical of the most assumption to its final implications, but it follows from this famous continental philosophy at the time, existentialism. that all her positive views on how we should be, stand against Murdoch situates her self in the crossroads of these quite the our supposed nature as human beings. So, why we should opposite trends in contemporary philosophy and shows that fight our nature, why selfishness —our true nature— should they share more than it could appear at first glance. not be admitted as goodness? Murdoch does not address this contradiction nor put in question the Freudian picture of the Against this "Kantian" (liberal) picture of human moral self either. She naively identifies a socio-historical agency, Murdoch rightfully argues that we perform moral conditioned mode of behavior with an abstract (shared by all actions, not because an empty unconditioned will, but separate individuals) human nature. because we see the objective moral value in the world, i.e., values that do not depend on our will, nor are the outcome of Here Murdoch seems to be dealing with "the death of the our choosing. Those, she believes, are objective features that subject," i.e., the shipwreck of the idea of subjectivity as self- we must learn to spot in the object by attending to it without determinate consciousness and a spontaneous will. On the the distorting clouds of our selfish nature. To illustrate this, other hand, Murdoch explicitly deals with the "death of God," she uses her most famous example of "M" and "D," a i.e., the disappearance of any transcendental telos for giving hypothetical "ordinary and everyday" situation of moral sense to our lives. How to be morally good in a life without evaluation from a woman (M) towards her daughter-in-law God? This theme was also artistically developed in some of
Piedra Arencibia, R. (2019). Un Discípulo de Platón entre los filósofos morales británicos: Una revisión de La Soberanía del 48 Bien. Dialektika: Revista De Investigación Filosófica Y Teoría Social, 1(2), 47-49. Recuperado a partir de https://journal.dialektika.org/ojs/index.php/logos/article/view/14
REVISTA DE INVESTIGACIÓN FILOSÓFICA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL Dialektika
her novels, such as The Time of the Angels. Murdoch faces similar virtue to goodness. Is humility the virtue which what J.P. Sartre called "starting point of existentialism" in his provides us with true vision. "The humble man, because he famous short paper Existentialism is a Humanism, but she sees himself as nothing, can see other things as they are," she gives an entirely different solution to the problem. Although says. Even Sartre would be astonished by the sweet innocence Murdoch seems to be entirely in agreement with this divine of this exhortation, especially when Murdoch repeatedly death, she is interested in the structure of an activity directed accuses him of being too romantic or unrealistic. What she toward God as a transcendental object, prayer. For this does not provide to any extent is an explanation of why being activity resembles the precious process of redirecting our humble is so hard. Here she has nothing else to say except to loving attention toward a non-egocentric object. The Good, appeal to a presumed human (selfish) nature as the enemy of supreme aim of the virtuous person’s attention, should be morality. The naivety of her romanticism consists of its similar to God in this sense; that is, in the sense of an object inability to take into account the socio-historical reasons that we could only see if we lose ourselves in it if we "expel" than make us selfish. In a world in which being selfish is the our ego —that "fat relentless" enemy of morality, as Murdoch only way to survive, the humble shall indeed "accept the calls it— from our view. death," but not in the sophisticated metaphoric sense used by Murdoch at the end of her book, but sadly in a literal sense. It is not hard to find this "expelling" procedure that Murdoch Therefore, the path to goodness does not consist of a personal is proposing as a problematic, if not self-contradictory, and quest of "unselfing" but a historical act of transformation of impossible aspiration. Here I am emptying my self to "see" the social structure; it is a collective struggle for the objective the other as he is, but if the other wants to do the same, we (social) conditions to enable us to become multifaceted and will end up in the pointless relation of two empty mirrors complete selves, not a personal exercise of illumination by facing each other to reflect nothing. More importantly, this becoming nothing, by negating ourselves. moral philosophy seems to lead us to a sort of "humble" (miserable and poor) existence: the less you are, the better Murdoch's book is valuable not because of its uncertain and you are. One could sense an inclination of the author to take romantic answers but because it draws our attention toward an idealized image of the "simple people" as the closest to essential and yet for a long-time neglected questions in goodness. philosophy. It is a warm exotic island within the cold sea of British XX century philosophy, and the best of its merits This romantic view is even more palpable in the third and last resides in its daring spirit. Its challenging claim is against the chapter, "The sovereignty of good over other concepts," famous last sentence of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Moral where Murdoch again makes the "selfish" human nature in a concerns are issues that we cannot afford to "pass over in Godless world her starting point. This is perhaps the most silence." If our language turns out to be unable to address positive of the three essays, for it is filled with her views on them within our philosophy, that only means that we have a how we could move from this selfish natural starting point terrible philosophy of language. toward virtue and goodness. Putting in practice her believe in
that metaphors have cognitive potential; she mobilizes Plato's allegories of the cave and the sun as heuristic devices for REVIEW developing her views. Murdoch sees the transcendental nature of goodness in the compulsory but yet never quite reachable aim to "pierce the veil of selfish consciousness and join the world as it really is." Loving the truth is then the same as loving goodness. The object of true love must always be under the light of the Platonic sun. This kind of vision is supposed to be the key for virtuous behavior, as Murdoch embraces the belief that correct vision occasions right conduct. Ultimately, the prescription of The Sovereignty of Good is to urge us into humility. For Murdoch, as it can be easily deduced from her arguments, this is the closest, the more
49 DIALEKTIKA · 2019, 1 ( 2 ): 47- 49. REVISTA DE INVESTIGACIÓN FILOSÓFICA Y TEORÍA SOCIAL